We’ve been critical of her positions and comments on these pages in recent months, so let us give credit when we can to Graham council member Bonnie Whitaker.
To her credit, it was Whitaker this week who seemed to be pivotal in calling a halt to the council’s otherwise headlong rush toward demolishing part of a parking lot on West Elm Street, to be replaced with a park that no one other than three members of the city council seems to want.
When the bids for the demolition and construction work came in with a minimum bid of $1.2 million, Whitaker this week told her fellow council members that the amounts (the second bid was $1.6 million), were simply too high to proceed.
The council then voted, 5-0, for her motion to reject both bids and not to authorize staff to proceed with purchasing construction materials, which was another option available to the council on Monday’s agenda.
That doesn’t, yet, mean that the council has changed its desire to substitute a new park for the Sesquicentennial Park on the northwest corner of Court Square, but it at least stops the irrational urgency to spend money for a new park that no one wants.
It is our assessment that Whitaker’s refusal to go along with the high price tag ended up forcing the other two proponents of the new park – mayor pro tem Ricky Hall and councilman Bobby Chin – also to vote against proceeding. We infer that inasmuch as neither Hall nor Chin addressed the bids, or Whitaker’s motion, substantively during the seven-minute city council meeting.
But with their 3-2 alliance for building the new park busted by Whitaker’s newfound reluctance to spend that kind of tax money, at best the bids would have failed on a 2-3 vote, if, in fact, Hall and Chin would have actually preferred to proceed.
At any rate, give her recognition for a willingness to let new information (i.e., the million-plus price tag) influence her decision making.
